The Skulls
USA 2000
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Luke McNamara is a student from an impoverished background attending an Ivy League college. An athletics ace and top-flight law student, he is inducted into the elitist, top-secret society the Skulls, much to the disgust of his roommate, journalism student Will and his friend Chloe. As a Skull, Luke is given money and a sports car. He befriends Senator Levritt, a senior Skull, and fellow member Caleb Mandrake, whose father, Litten, is chairman of the society. Will, who is researching an exposé of the Skulls, is found dead in his room, apparently having committed suicide.
Caleb admits that he inadvertently killed Will in a struggle at the Skulls headquarters, where he caught him researching his story. With the help of Chloe and his friends from the days before he went to university, Luke obtains a surveillance tape which reveals that Litten ordered his henchmen to murder the injured Will after Caleb had left the building. Luke hands the tape to the police inspector investigating Will's death, only to realise that he is in cahoots with the Skulls. Luke is shipped off to a mental institution. Chloe informs Caleb that his father was responsible for Will's death, and later rescues Luke with the aid of Senator Levritt. Luke challenges Caleb to a duel, during which the enraged Caleb shoots his father. Luke realises that he has been used as a pawn in a plan by Levritt to seize control of the Skulls. He declines Levritt's offer to rejoin the society and sets off to begin a new life with Chloe.
Review
There's a glorious moment near the start of The Skulls in which Leslie Bibb's WASP love interest unveils a machine programmed to squirt paint randomly at a canvas à la Jackson Pollock. "Am I the artist or is the machine?" she wonders. "Maybe it's just chaos in its purest form." Tweak this question a little and it could apply to the film as a whole. Who's the artist here: director Rob Cohen (making his first feature since Daylight, 1996) or the Hollywood machine? Either way, the end result is chaotic. Clankingly schematic in its first half, The Skulls proceeds to suffer a protracted nervous breakdown about midway through.
A college-set conspiracy thriller (think Enemy of the State by way of Varsity Blues), The Skulls affects to lift the lid on American elitism with a tale of a secret society obviously based on Yale's clandestine Skull and Bones (which counts both Bush senior and junior among its members). Its opening scenes set up a ready-made class tension. Luke (Joshua Jackson, graduate of television's Dawson's Creek) is a "townie" kid from the wrong side of the tracks who attracts the notice of the club's posh-boy fraternity by dint of sheer ability (he wins a boat race from a seemingly hopeless position). But while Luke is intrigued by the wealth and power of the Skulls, his best friend Will (a journalism student played by Hill Harper) is more sceptical: "If it's secret and elite it can't be good."
This, in essence, is The Skulls' moral. The trouble is that the film is fatally compromised, at least half way in love with the culture it purports to criticise. Throughout the film, Cohen adopts a trusty tabloid tack: shout it loud and then condemn it. He rubs the viewers' nose so lavishly in the cash and cars and career opportunities that follow Luke's entrée into the Skulls that the resulting fall-out (Will's murder) comes across as a minor price to pay. More significantly, it is this turn of fortunes that heralds the film's sudden plunge towards oblivion. Until then The Skulls is merely risible (arcane ceremonies and jocks wearing cowls). After Will's death it becomes positively barmy; afflicted by a fit of plot twists that culminate in the sight of Luke drooling in an institution like some extra from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Through pure mismanagement, The Skulls bungles a rich seam of material. There is a potentially fine drama to be made about secret societies like Skull and Bones - those breeding grounds of the American class system, with their ersatz model of age-old rituals thrown down on a new, supposedly libertarian landscape. The Skulls - at once airbrushed and untidy, contrived and confused - is emphatically not that movie.
Credits
- Director
- Rob Cohen
- Producers
- Neal H. Moritz
- John Pogue
- Screenplay
- John Pogue
- Director of Photography
- Shane Hurlbut
- Editor
- Peter Amundson
- Production Designer
- Bob Ziembicki
- Music
- Randy Edelman
- ©Skulls Productions, LLC
- Production Companies
- Universal Pictures in association with Original Film/
Newmarket Capital Group present a Neal H. Moritz production - Executive Producers
- William Tyrer
- Chris J. Ball
- Bruce Mellon
- Co-producer
- Fred Caruso
- Associate Producers
- Creighton Bellinger
- Nancy Kirhoffer
- Executive in Charge of Production
- Original Film:
- Jennifer Tuthill
- Production Co-ordinator
- Deborah Zwicker
- Production Manager
- Lyn Lucibello
- Unit Production Manager
- Robert Rothbard
- Location Managers
- Anthony Kadak
- Arthur Clarke
- 2nd Unit:
- Charles May
- 2nd Unit Director
- John Pogue
- Assistant Directors
- Tony Lucibello
- Grant Lucibello
- Yolanda Graci
- Harley Cohen
- Script Supervisor
- Elaine Yarish
- Casting
- Mary Vernieu
- Anne McCarthy
- Toronto:
- Clare Walker
- ADR Group Voice:
- Loop Troop
- 2nd Unit Directors of Photography
- Paul van der Linden
- Keith Murphy
- Camera Operators
- Andy Chmura
- Keith Murphy
- Special Visual Effects
- Syd Dutton
- Bill Taylor
- Illusion Arts
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Ted Ross
- Key:
- Bob Hall
- Shop Co-ordinator:
- Pamela Gibson
- Pre-rig:
- Arthur Langevin
- Graphics
- Shawn Thomas
- Associate Editor
- Jana Lynn Gold
- Art Director
- Peter Grundy
- Set Designer
- Neil Morfitt
- Set Decorators
- Steven Shewchuk
- Clive Thomasson
- Draftspeople
- Rudy Braun
- Rupert Lazarus
- Scenic Artist
- Reet Puhm
- Storyboard Artist
- Nikita Knatz
- 'Action Jackson' Design
- Jonathon Fineberg
- 'Action Jackson' Built by
- Warren Keillor
- Costume Designer
- Marie-Sylvie Deveau
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Kim W. Chow
- Wardrobe
- Gayle Franklin
- Key Make-up Artist
- Leslie Sebert
- Key Hair Stylist
- Carol Marinoff
- Title Design
- The Picture Mill
- Opticals
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Additional Music
- Steve Porcaro
- Music Supervisors
- Michelle Kuznetsky
- Mary Ramos
- Music Editor
- Joanie Diener
- Score Engineer/Mixer
- Elton Ahi
- Soundtrack
- "Something about a Ceiling" - 3 Day Wheely; "Deadcell" - Papa Roach; "Falling" - Eman; "Rigmarole" - BTK; "Devil's Train" - Hednoize; "Dandy Life" - Collective Soul; "Taste" - Lorna Vallings; "Higher" - Creed; "Right Here, Right Now" - Fatboy Slim; "Businessman's Bounce" - Sourcerer
- Sound Supervisor
- John Nutt
- Sound Mixer
- Glen Emile Gauthier
- Sound Engineers
- Jack Snyder
- John Clavin
- Jay Palmer
- Frank N. Bassi
- Re-recording Mixers
- Mike Casper
- Dan Leahy
- Sound Recordist
- Charlie Ajar Jr
- Dialogue Editor
- David Franklin Bergad
- Sound Effects Designer
- James 'Shadow' Lebrecht
- Sound Effects Editor
- Christopher Emerson
- ADR Mixer
- Jeff Gomillion
- Foley
- Artists:
- Margie O'Malley
- Marnie Moore
- Recordist:
- Steve Fontano
- Mixer:
- Frank Rinella
- Editor:
- Patti Tauscher
- Boxing Consultants
- Paul Walker III
- Florida Jack Harrell
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Branko Racki
- Rowing/Regatta
- Co-ordinator
- Dominic Kahn
- Weapons Wrangler
- John 'Frenchie' Berger
- Cast
- Joshua Jackson
- Luke McNamara
- Paul Walker
- Caleb Mandrake
- Hill Harper
- Will Beckford
- Leslie Bibb
- Chloe
- Christopher McDonald
- Martin Lombard
- Steve Harris
- Detective Sparrow
- William Petersen
- Ames Levritt
- Craig T. Nelson
- Litten Mandrake
- David Asman
- Jason Pitcairn
- Scott Gibson
- Travis Wheeler
- Nigel Bennett
- Doctor Whitney
- Andrew Kraulis
- McBride
- Derek Aasland
- Sullivan
- Jennifer Melino
- J.J.
- Noah Danby
- Hugh Mauberson
- Mak Fyfe
- Laurence Thorne
- David Christo
- Shawn Packford
- Shaw Madson
- Chad MacIntosh
- Jesse Nilsson
- Kent Hodgins
- Shawn Mathieson
- Jonathan Payne
- Steven McCarthy
- Sweeney
- Matt Taylor
- Medoc
- Henry Alessandroni
- Strain
- James Finnerty
- preppy freshman
- Cyprian Lerch
- student in lunch line
- Dominic Kahn
- regatta judge
- Ken Campbell
- starting judge
- Pedro Salvin
- lodge butler
- Derek Boyes
- assistant district attorney
- Katherine Trowell
- sanctuary administrator
- Connie Buell
- waitress
- Steve Richard
- furniture mover
- Kevin Allen
- Sturtevant security guard
- Paul Walker III
- boxing coach
- Jason Knight
- police techie
- Amanda Goundry
- co-ed in Caleb's car
- Malin Akerman
- co-ed in Caleb's apartment
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 9,616 feet
- 106 minutes 51 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- Colour/Prints by
- DeLuxe Film Laboratory Hollywood